Perch, Year Classes in Lake Michigan, By the Numbers

As you will often hear from old timers next to you fishing for perch along the miles of shoreline on Lake Michigan, things aren't what they used to be.  The good old days died in the early nineties with mussels, alewifes, overfishing, and dwindling bait fish populations to name a few.  Here's a graph that not only tells you the state of fishing this year, but can be used to help predict years to come.

Chicago Perch Fishing Report : Navy Pier : 1-24-2010

The three week dry spell is over and Great Lakes Angler is on the board for 2010, catching 52 perch in an hour and a half yesterday. Conditions yesterday were more than favorable and, being as I was only on call for work, I headed downtown with rod and reel and some bait and picked a spot on the pier. As I strung up my rod folks were pulling in the standard 5"-8" navy pier perch that one expects to sort through while fishing there. I baited both top and bottom hooks with a chunk of shrimp and casted 30 feet off the wall. I brought up my slack and checked tension and as I did I felt resistance and set the hook. The fish felt bigger than it should and I reeled in an honest to goodness Jumbo Perch on my first cast, running between 12 and 13 inches. Not Bad.

Here is the big girthy Jumbo with an 8" standard keeper.

The rest of the time the action was fast and consistent, and I kept half a limit and tossed the rest back, I could have easily kept a limit but I only have two mouths to feed and don't like to over harvest fish that I will just freeze.

All keepers were between 8" and 12.5" and most fish were in the 7" range. I saw a few more 10-11" fish caught today and the fish seemed bigger than they did last year at this time.

Nothing like catching dozens of fish in the middle of downtown chicago on a 45 degree day in January. The wind and rain was a bit bothersome, but nothing compared to 15 degrees and frozen guides.

Google Life Collection : Great Lakes Angler

Tonight I made a bit of discovery using google image search. If you type into the search bar : source:life "xxxxxx" anything you want, it will search their newly scanned archives of all of the Life Magazine articles and feed you the images associated with the articles it finds.

Thus a search of "source:life greatlakes" will get you images of the great lakes from articles from decades ago, which makes for some great images that you have likely never seen.

I naturally tried "source:life wisconsin" and found this beautiful trout stream image.

Here is another from "source:life greatlakes"

Finally this great image of "the Swanson family" on Oak Street Pier with a trot line out for yellow perch. This image was taken in 1950.

Have a look yourself, you might enjoy it.

Chicago Perch Fishing Report : 12/20/2009 : Montrose Harbor

The ice is beginning to move in and perch are harder to find as a result. I found today at montrose harbor that getting away from the open water and fishing between the floating ice floes was the best way to find the fish. Perch were very scattered and the bite was lite when it did happen.

I hooked a few fish on artificials and a few more on cut bait made from a dead perch some other inconsiderate fisherman threw directly onto the ice.

Reports from Navy Pier sound similar, that you have to move around and work to find the school and when you do the perch are small. I caught a couple above 8 inches but most ran around 6 today.

The harbors still have a way to go before they lock up for the winter. Get out and catch some perch before you have to drill through to find them.

Chicago Perch Fishing Report : 12/13/2009

Perch are finally showing up in numbers in the harbors near Chicago, fishing picked up this morning at Montrose Harbor around 8:30 a.m. today and continued to be good until I left at 10:30. Between myself and two friends we pulled up around 75 perch in those 2 hours, 14 of which were winter keeper Perch in the 7.5-10 inch range. Shrimp on a crappie rig on the bottom worked well, artificial minnows and small spinners tipped with bait worked as well. Larger Perch hit the spinners but fish were far between using that method.

The code for the Montrose Harbor Docks (B Dock at least) is 3-4-5 this winter, this allows you to get out into the harbor and off the wall, move often if perch aren't biting to find an active school.

A friend took home the keepers in the photograph above, I gave some of my keepers to him and released the rest. A quick note, I was checked by the DNR today for license and limit. It is great to see the DNR out there enforcing some law. I wouldn't dare keep more than 15 perch or fish without a license. There is no where to run or hide and the DNR will catch you if you are poaching.

As the ice comes be safe and careful out there, a lot of fun will be had this winter on the ice but do some reading if you haven't been out before and always use common sense.